


Forever

by scheherazade



Category: Cricket RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-02
Updated: 2014-05-02
Packaged: 2018-01-21 04:48:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1538186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scheherazade/pseuds/scheherazade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nothing changes, for them, so perfect as they are. Kumar still gets him on every level, and pushes him where they don't match so much as catch, hook and tooth, bound together by natural laws. They are the greatest friendship ever told. They are the storybook ending that flutters the hearts of journalists far and wide. They are Sanga and Mahela, and they are fine. Couldn't live without each other.</p><p>They're fine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forever

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to [Mr. Kimber](https://twitter.com/ajarrodkimber/status/478482360053538816), who writes the best Sanga/Mahela stories on the internet. ;)

* * *

   
_Colombo, January 2028_  
 

Thirty-four years, ten months, and fifteen days. Three hundred four thousand, eight hundred ninety-six hours. One billion, ninety-seven million, six hundred twenty-five thousand seconds — give or take. It seems strange that a life can be measured in simple numbers, when living is scarcely captured by even poetry.

"You're doing that thing again."

"What?"

"Philosophizing."

"I'm not philosophizing."

"You're not helping me with this pitch," Mahela observes, typing away at his laptop. "So what _are_ you doing?"

Kumar furtively turns a page in the report he should have read yesterday. "I'm researching."

"Uh huh."

"I am."

"Sure." Mahela hits enter on the keyboard. He rubs his left shoulder, turning his neck this way and that; Kumar feels his own muscles twinge in sympathy. Mahela catches him looking and rolls his eyes, though it doesn't stop the smile turning up the corners of his mouth. "I could use a break."

Kumar tosses the report aside. "Thank God."

"I didn't say you could have a break."

"And I thanked God, not you."

Mahela doesn't even bother rolling his eyes this time. Kumar reaches for his jacket hanging on the coat rack. Mahela does the same, but only makes it halfway before a spasm causes him to withdraw his hand. Kumar retrieves the windbreaker for him, helps him into it. Mahela doesn't comment when Kumar lets his hand linger, pretending to smooth away a wrinkle in the fabric.

"Is it getting worse?"

"I'm not getting any younger."

"You shouldn't sit at the computer for so long."

"You shouldn't talk to my mother so often."

Kumar holds the door open in lieu of finding an appropriately glib answer. Mahela notices. Of course he does. Because they've known each other far too long for such things to go unnoticed, if not unsaid.

"Chai?" Kumar asks to pre-empt whatever question Mahela's about to voice.

Mahela gives him one, long look. "All right."

They walk to the cafe around the corner, matching steps in slow-paced time. Late January tends to be the worst, patched with the dregs of monsoon rain and indistinct northerly winds. Kumar can feel it in his own joints, most mornings, after a lifetime of sport and injury; he can only thank God that Mahela wasn't born a fast bowler.

"Stop thinking," Mahela grouches over a second cup of tea.

"I wasn't," Kumar says reflexively, then frowns when Mahela starts laughing at him. "What?"

"One day they'll find a DNA test proving you're from another planet." His tone is off-hand, casual: "You keep staring at me when you think I'm not looking."

Kumar sits back, shrugs. "I'm just distracted. Sorry."

"By what?"

"Nothing."

"Being distracted by nothing would mean you're focused. That's a logical impasse."

"Who's philosophizing now?"

"Just thought I'd ask."

Kumar pushes the sugar bowl closer to the table edge. "You should take the rest of the day off."

"I can't."

"You own the business. If you want to reschedule the pitch, it's up to you."

"No," Mahela says, "it's up to _us_."

"I'll write you a sick note."

"You take the day off, too."

Kumar, expecting a joking rejoinder, nearly misses his cue. "What?"

"Tell Dushan to cover the office," Mahela continues. "You take the day off. With me."

"Why?"

"You own the business. Do you need a reason?"

"That seems irresponsible."

"So you're telling me to be irresponsible?"

"No, I'm..." Except he has no idea how to finish that sentence. Mahela is watching expectantly. Patiently. It seems awfully familiar, though he can't quite explain that, either. But what Kumar does know is defeat when it's staring him in the face. "All right, fine. Call Dushan."

"Done." Mahela finishes his drink and stands, smiling. "So, what do you want to do first?"

 

* * *

 

They go for a late lunch and a bit of exploring, though Kumar points out that they've already explored Colombo so many times there can't possibly be anything new to find. Mahela lets him drive — and maintains a steady silence when they get lost within ten minutes of setting off. Because they might have covered Colombo inch by inch, but that was nearly twelve years ago, when retirement was still a new and gaping thing in their lives, and time was better spent in the company of someone who understood.

Eventually they make their way back to Galle Road, and Kumar pulls over at some purportedly "exciting European fusion" restaurant that still hasn't taken down its grand opening sign. 

"This is where you wanted to go?" Mahela says, sounding more than passing amused.

"Yeah," Kumar lies, "I remember somebody telling me about it."

"Really." Mahela follows him to the front door. "What did they say?"

Kumar coughs. "Well, uh." He spots a printed white sheet taped to inside of a street-facing window. "The menu. Look. Interesting concept, isn't it?"

The food isn't bad, even if the menu's literary pretensions leave much to be desired. Kumar refuses to eat anything named after an erroneously-attributed Oscar Wilde quote; Mahela rolls his eyes and orders the shrimp. Just like old times, though there's more grey on both their heads now, and some mornings Mahela's joints ache too much for him to even make a cup of tea on his own. But still, there's conversation. There's ease. Like any of the hundreds, thousands of hours they've spent together. And it seems impossible, sometimes, that they should have come so far without coming apart.

After, they wander down through the market while Kumar rues the fried bananas currently wreaking havoc on his aging parasympathetic nervous system. The _I told you so_ is very heavily implied as they pass Fifth Cross Street, and Mahela points to bundles of dandelion, senna and caraway. 

"You have any cash on you?"

Kumar quickly decides that stomach pains are nothing to worry about, nothing a long walk can't cure, and steers them away from the bitter herbal medicine.

Two streets down, a small crowd has gathered in a snack shop's open doorway. The smell of tea and roti mix with the warm musk of afternoon. A TV set is showing the cricket: a replay of last year's Ashes. They spend a few minutes watching the camera make love to Sandhu, slow-motion rewinds on every boundary and cool, thousand-yard gaze. 

"Like the colonizers never left," Mahela mutters over Warne's commentary.

"Got to fill the airwaves with something in between our matches."

Mahela snorts. "That's what the IPL is for."

Kumar's phone goes off. A message, from Yehali — to remind him that she's going to Sydney in the morning, and the kids know to call him if they need anything, so he should know as well. He scrolls to the end and still half-expects a _love you_ or _kisses_ , but of course they don't do that anymore. Business professional is what you get after twenty-five years of marriage ended by separation.

Mahela interrupts the silence with a quiet, "You all right?"

Kumar pockets his phone, puts on a smile. "Yeah. Yehali's going on a trip tomorrow, just wanted to check in."

He looks back at the TV and tries to be interested in Fisher's bowling. It's either this innings or the next when England completely fall apart, from what he remembers of the test. 

"Want to go?" Mahela asks. Kumar follows him back into the streets, winding through sunset dust and heat.

They make their way down to the waterfront just as day is fading into dark. Some children are playing cricket by the water's margin, their high clear voices louder than any seabird or siren. It seems strange to remember that these children were born into a country without war. That to them, and those after them, bombs and checkpoints and killing fields will all be things of textbook past. 

"You should call her," Mahela says after Kumar checks his phone for the third time in as many minutes.

"It's fine."

"Yeah?"

"It's complicated."

"And I wouldn't understand?"

Kumar says nothing to that, because he can't, not when he's been here the past two years and Chris hasn't. They both know what the other knows, so they keep walking, the temperature dropping with the sun.

"Do you have a lawyer?" Mahela asks next.

"I don't need an attorney."

"Two years of law school doesn't make you qualified to settle a divorce on your own."

"We're not getting a divorce," Kumar says. "Though she is seeing someone. At least I think she is. We don't talk much, but I guess it's her life now."

Mahela doesn't answer immediately. When he does, it's to say, "And that upsets you."

Kumar feels his own face grimace. It's true. "We've been together for, what, half our lives? More than half. It's just — strange. I never thought I'd have to deal with this."

"Must be difficult," Mahela observes, "not getting your way for once."

Silence.

"Don't do that," Kumar says quietly.

"Sorry."

"I know I can't have everything. But it was _good_. I keep thinking it over and that's all I can think of, that it was good. Right up until she left, and — I don't know." He pauses. "I guess you do understand."

"Why?"

"You know." Kumar makes a vague gesture. "The whole thing with Chris."

"You just said you're not getting a divorce."

Kumar searches for the right words. "I mean, didn't you ever — feel angry or upset about her seeing someone else? After everything?"

Mahela goes quiet at that. 

"The thing with me and Chris," he begins eventually, before he stops himself. Then, "I knew she was seeing someone. Before we separated."

And this — is news to Kumar. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

"I didn't know."

Mahela looks down, and there's a shadow on his face that has nothing to do with the quality of light. "Then again," he says, "we weren't exactly faithful to them either, were we?"

 

* * *

   
_Lahore, March 2009_  
 

"I wish they wouldn't joke about it," Mahela says.

He's lying on the hotel bed, idly tossing a worn cricket ball Kumar found on the street. There's something romantic, Kumar muses, about imagining who might have held this same piece of leather, invested it with dreams and loved the crack of its skin against willow. Mahela thinks that's stupid. For all they know, it could have been a bomb disguised as a piece of sporting equipment. Kumar thinks _that's_ stupid. People love cricket too much to do something like that, whatever their religious leaders might say. There's strength in silly things like love for an ideal, a game.

"Resilience, my friend." Kumar peers into the mirror one more time. Later he'll deny every minute of this preening, insisting that his hair just looks that perfect on its own. "It's one of our better qualities. Along with humor, hospitality—" Kumar meets Mahela's eyes in the mirror, offers a grin, "—and modesty in all things."

Mahela mimes chucking the cricket ball at his head. Kumar walks over and tries to swipe the ball away from him; Mahela holds it just out of reach. But his own reluctance to move from what is actually a very comfortable position puts him at a disadvantage when Kumar leans over and effectively cages him in. 

The ball winds up in Kumar's hand. Kumar's arms wind up resting on either side of Mahela's shoulders. And this should be weird, probably. But Kumar has never had the same boundaries as other people, and Mahela doesn't really want to learn where they end. Not now. Not when there's room enough, here, for them.

"Hey," says Kumar, his face so close it starts to go out of focus. "Don't worry, all right? We'll be fine."

"Bit too late to worry," Mahela returns, "when we're already here."

"Exactly."

"I still don't want the team joking about it. You can't turn death into a joke."

"Even jokes have meaning."

"Not like this." Not surrounded by presidential-style security in a country, a world that hates for the sake of hatred. As if senseless violence could ever be a face of divine love. Not when there are nearer and dearer places to die. Not when they haven't even done anything to be remembered by. Not when a couple ballplayers would become bigger headlines than the thousands of injustices happening every day. 

Something in Mahela's face must have given his thoughts away. "Stop over-thinking," Kumar says. He drops his head a bit further, his carefully-styled hair falling forward to brush Mahela's temples. "Hey. Look at me."

"You're blurry," Mahela tells him. 

"And you're unhappy." Kumar smiles. "Don't be, all right? Remember where we are. Not just Pakistan, but here." His hand finds Mahela's, a solid weight settling between their palms — the cricket ball. "Playing a game. Playing for a country, a reason. And doing it together."

His fingertips are calloused. But Mahela already knows that, has known since Kumar picked up the habit of holding his hand, sometimes, sitting together on busses and planes. He closes his hand just enough to almost lace their fingers together, curled around the curve of the ball.

"That's why," he hears himself admit, "I don't want them to joke about a bomb going off."

"It won't," Kumar says, as if he has a right to promise things like this. As if it's normal to be so certain, so calm. To breathe across his best friend's lips and press a kiss to his cheek. To let his hand brush the hollow of Mahela's neck, between the open lapels of his shirt. To do this without comment, and expect to be received.

Mahela holds himself still. Kumar unfolds himself from the bed and offers him a hand up. 

"Come on. We're going to be late for dinner."

 

* * *

 

The next morning, a sound like firecrackers greets them in Liberty Square, and in real time he hears the driver shout, "Get down." Everything seems to collapse. Bodies, steel, glass. Eight people die. They're airlifted to a military base, shipped out on the very next flight. Tharanga survives a bullet to the chest. Eight people are still dead. In Dubai, Kumar finds him puking into a ridiculously high-tech toilet, blood from his lips specked in bile. 

"We're all right," Kumar says. Quiet, insistent, sure. He repeats it like a mantra, over and over while Mahela's stomach turns itself inside out. Tears in the corners of his eyes. Kumar's hand at the nape of his shivering neck. Everything blurring again, and still Kumar promises him: "We're all right. We're all right."

 

* * *

   
_Mumbai, April 2011_  
 

They go back to the hotel together, after. The rest of the team have already disbanded, after the long silence in the locker room, the distant cheers of the stadium still ringing in their ears. After Dilshan started the discussion with halting words, after they drew out the poison play by play, mistake by mistake. After the cold comfort of another lesson learned, another final lost.

And this has become familiar, too: after the interviews, after the defeat, he and Kumar find each other to share a reiteration of the promise — they play for each other, for a country, a people, and there is faith, too, in that prize. 

It doesn't make this hurt any less.

Kumar follows him into the elevator. "Should we cancel the team lunch tomorrow?"

Mahela watches the lighted numbers change, first floor to second to third. "I don't really want to talk about it."

"All right."

"Not tonight."

"We won't."

They get off at the same floor. Kumar follows Mahela to his room instead of turning toward his own. Mahela stops outside the door. The silence is long. 

"I meant I want to be alone right now," Mahela says.

Kumar looks steadily at him. "None of us are alone."

"By which you mean you don't want to be."

Kumar shrugs, smiling easily. "You know me as well as I know you."

And Mahela — wishes he knew how to argue with that. But this is the truth. They've known each other for nearly twenty years. They've shared too many days and defeats to turn away now. They've survived, and they've made it: Kumar by virtue of virtue, Mahela by some sheer stubbornness that saw him take on the mantle of captaincy and the hopes of a country and three World Cup finals and counting. 

And still nothing ends the way he wants.

He lets Kumar follow him inside. He drops his bag on the floor, and it doesn't lessen the heaviness. He lets Kumar rub his shoulders, his arms, hands curling around biceps to gently turn them face to face. Kumar doesn't ask if it's okay, and Mahela doesn't say no. He lets Kumar touch and wait and cup his face like you would a child, a lover — not a best friend whose wedding you missed through no fault of your own. Whose wife has known your wife since they were girls. Whose hair is still wet from a post-match shower, water dripping to dissipate where skin meets skin.

And Kumar doesn't understand personal boundaries the way other people do, perhaps, but there's no question now that they're close enough to kiss.

Kumar turns his head a fraction, with intent. Mahela holds himself still. 

And he will wonder forever — can see it already, in some hazy future beyond today — the question of who made the final move between sharing space and sharing air. If there is guilt by omission, then that guilt is his. But it's Kumar who leans in.

He's not a romantic. Neither of them are. Still, Mahela remembers how his heart and the universe seemed to stutter the first time he kissed his wife. Chris moved against him as if they could meld into one, and for a second Mahela forgave every romantic story ever written, because it was like this. 

But time doesn't take notice of Kumar's mouth on his. Nothing masks the rough scratch of his beard or their chapped, bitten lips. Hands smooth down his arms and back, tingling like static, like petting a cat's fur against the grain. Too much. Kumar's hand comes to rest at the nape of his neck, and Mahela parts his lips to let him in. 

They've shared everything from meals to matches to bandaged wounds; sharing a bed could almost be anticlimactic if Mahela chooses to believe it were so. He's tired — of waiting, of losing, of standing and craning up to meet Kumar's height. The mattress takes his weight. Kumar takes his hand. Doesn't let go as he kisses the side of Mahela's neck, twines his ankle around the back of Mahela's knee, warms his hands beneath the fabric of his shirt. Too intimate. Too familiar. 

Too tired to voice a protest he doesn't mean. 

He lets Kumar tuck his head against his shoulder, their entwined fingers resting at his hip. "Sleep," Kumar murmurs, and Mahela closes his eyes. He doesn't remember falling asleep. But he does remember waking up in the morning to find Kumar already gone.

 

* * *

 

They never talk about it.

 

* * *

   
_Dhaka, April 2014_  
 

"It's what God wanted," Kumar says, grinning like it's a private joke even though that Darren Sammy quote has been replayed and reprinted a hundred times across every media channel angling for the divine intervention perspective. There's nothing original about it. Though there might be something romantic, some sort of justice or fulfillment, in seeing an ending so neatly resolved.

Sangakkara and Jayawardene, a promise delivered. 

The celebrations would carry on fine without them, Mahela thinks, much like their retirement. It's not about them; it's for the team, for the people who need a resolution to this part of the story because this is all they see. As for himself — there's no escape from living the rest. 

Including this part, where Kumar finds him not-quite-hiding in a corner after he's completed the obligatory round of handshakes and congratulations from all and sundry. Kumar himself has probably circled the room at least three times. 

At least it's just the team, for now. Some idea the coaching staff had, that it'd be good for the boys to enjoy it together, first, without the wives and families. Mahela isn't even going to argue the logic of letting sponsors and corporate suits attend instead. Not tonight. Not while they're celebrating, equal parts elation and relief. Not while Angelo still carries the same stunned look he had the first time he wore the shirt. Not while Lasith and Nuwan are already ignoring everybody else in favor of rehashing the entire tournament in some grinning, disjointed, finish-each-other's-sentences language that only they understand. 

"You seriously want me to believe," Mahela says after a pause, "that with all the war and hunger and pestilence going on in the world, God still has time for a bit of cricket match-fixing on the side?"

Kumar laughs and puts his arm around Mahela's shoulders, conspiratorial. "I won't report him if you won't."

"Fuck off."

"Now, I know you're secretly happy."

"And you're not not-so-secretly drunk."

"Mm." Kumar leans even closer, close enough to nuzzle at Mahela's ear. "It's a party. Did you forget how parties work?"

"I just forgot how you work."

"You know how I work." Kumar doesn't make any effort toward putting some respectable distance between them. His hip bumps Mahela's, moving into his space like a bad pick-up line. "I'm just a guy who plays cricket, and was lucky enough to win a World Cup with the best and most important person in my life."

Mahela makes a show of looking around. "Really? Did Yehali sneak in or something?"

Kumar squeezes his shoulder. "I'm talking about you, in case that wasn't clear."

"I'm just a guy who plays cricket."

"Don't steal my line."

"A guy who used to play T20 cricket," Mahela amends out loud. 

Kumar pauses. "It doesn't change anything."

"What doesn't?"

"We talked about it, right? It's time to go, so we're going. We're going with a trophy and leaving a better team behind — the best scenario we imagined. But we're still going to play and, most importantly, we're not going to change. You're my best friend. That's a commitment I made to you and one I intend to keep forever, so this changes nothing."

The sounds of the party, their teammates' voices, seem to fade. Not like a romantic haze; like panic, like gunshots and the collapse of everything. Kumar's arm is still around his shoulders. Mahela counts to ten and breathes. 

"I'm not worried about that."

"Then what?"

"Nothing."

Kumar's hand is curved against the side of his neck. "Your heart rate's through the roof." When no answer comes to relieve the pause he gives, Kumar continues, "I'm serious. We're going to be all right. It's about priorities. We put this team first and we always will, to some degree, but you're also my priority, so I'm telling you, nothing's going to change."

And Mahela could let him, the way he did before — the way he's done until now. Yielding. Not asking. Never saying no. But they're going on thirty-six and the world is changing, and today of all days Mahela won't — can't — forgive another waiting game he never meant to start. He shrugs off Kumar's arm.

"I need to call my wife." He watches Kumar's expression change. "Just — go philosophize at someone else, all right?"

It doesn't feel real, somehow. It's like watching someone else go through the motions, deliver the lines, and walk away. He thinks about looking back but can't find the strength.

 

* * *

 

They never talk about that, either.

Which is fine. Nothing changes, for them, so perfect as they are. Kumar still gets him on every level and pushes him where they don't match so much as catch, hook and tooth, bound together by natural laws. They are the greatest friendship ever told. They are the storybook ending that flutters the hearts of journalists far and wide. They are Sanga and Mahela, and they are fine. Couldn't live without each other.

They're fine.

 

* * *

 

Twelve years later, Chris files for divorce. Two years after that, Yehali leaves Kumar.

It's been thirty-four years, ten months, and fifteen days. Mahela is turning fifty come summer, and maybe — probably — he's played cricket for far too long, because even now half centuries still hold meaning enough for him to hope.

 

* * *

   
_Colombo, January 2028_  
 

"We weren't exactly faithful to them either, were we?"

For the first time in his life, Kumar feels time stop and nearly rewind. It's like the words are stretched out, delayed, each syllable too loud and too impossibly close. 

"What," he hears himself ask, "are you talking about."

They've come to a stop on a quiet stretch of promenade, the sea and sand turning dark beyond the railing against which Mahela leans. The breath of a dying day crosses water to land, blowing back his hair. Kumar can't stand to look, can't stand to look away when Mahela asks,

"What exactly have we been doing for the last thirty-four years, Kumar?"

 _What we've always done._ The words are on the tip of his tongue, because that's the truth — as much truth as the setting sun and the fact of Mahela standing here, beside him, the way it should always be. He shouldn't have to say, 

"I've never cheated on Yehali."

And Mahela — smiles, sort of. It's that twisted little smile, the one he used to wear after enduring a particularly tasteless sledge, or during yet another dispute with the cricket board. It's a sign of frustration, this much Kumar knows after a lifetime. It means something's out of Mahela's control that he doesn't want to be. 

"So again," Mahela says, "I ask you: what are we doing?"

"You're being more cryptic than the ECB with an ESPN reporter."

Mahela doesn't comment on the analogy, doesn't laugh. "Maybe. Maybe you really believe that, which is kind of outrageous. But say for a moment we did accept that you've always been faithful." He pauses. "Then there's still the thing where it's not true, and maybe never has been, for me."

Kumar opens his mouth to ask _what?_ but Mahela cuts him off,

"That's why I can't be upset with Chris. That's why I'm even on Yehali's side, in a way. Because she's right."

"What do you mean ' _she's right_ '?" And anger, at least, is still something he knows. "You think she's right that I haven't been good to her? That I've — I don't know, I've somehow not done her right?"

"If that's what she said to you."

"She never said any such thing!"

"But that's what you heard."

His fist connects with the iron railing without his brain's permission, and the blunt pain gives him enough — a moment's buffer — to turn on his heel and walk away. From this — this — whatever this is turning into, because this was not what he had in mind for a day off. The promenade seems empty and endless, blurring into twilight. 

He hears footsteps following behind.

"Kumar."

"Why are you doing this?" He rounds on Mahela. "Do you think this is helping me?"

Mahela stares him down. "Why does everything have to be about you?"

"I'm sorry, was it not my marriage we were talking about? Or was your — _riddle_ , or whatever that was — was that supposed to be about _you_?"

"It's about," Mahela says sharply, "how I need you to _listen_ to me. Just this once."

His nails dig into his palms. Kumar closes his eyes against those bright spots of pain, uses them to focus. Breathe. When he opens his eyes again, Mahela's still watching him and he can't— 

"You and Chris didn't split up because of me." It comes out less like a declaration and more like a plea.

Mahela's voice is soft and low. "When Chris left — she's still important to me, too important to deserve this. But she's not the person I want to spend everyday of the rest of my life with." 

The silence goes on for eternities. It isn't an accusation, no: an accusation would leave room for dissent. Now it seems hopeless to even say,

"You're my _best friend_."

"Never said I wasn't."

"Then why?"

The sound Mahela makes doesn't quite pass for laughter. " _Thirty-four years_ , Kumar."

"I know." And there's no arguing with that, because — "Because we made a commitment. To each other. I know that's not what we were taught as kids, but the world is changing and people don't just stay together forever because they're — intimate, or married, or whatever."

Mahela is quiet for a second. "And which one describes us?"

"What?"

"I want to know where you draw the line," Mahela says. " _You_ , specifically. Because — just so we're on the same page here — I did not make the first move."

"I—" Kumar can't seem to unclench his fists. "When did I ever make a move on you?"

"Pakistan 2009," Mahela replies immediately, followed by: "Mumbai 2011. Dhaka 2014. Sydney 2015. London 2018. November last year. Last week. _This morning._ You take your pick."

And it's hard to breathe, suddenly. Mahela is looking at him with some expression that isn't hurt, couldn't be, because it's the same face he's known for so long and to live through bodily suffering is one thing, but he's never — he's never— 

"I never meant to mislead you."

"Mis—" Mahela lets out a strangled sort of sound. Turns away. Covers his mouth with his hand to obscure the _fuck_ that slips between his teeth. 

Kumar takes a half-step forward. "Mahela, you know I'd never—"

"Right!" Mahela rounds on him, all ambiguity vanished in a flash of anger. "All right! I get it! I _misread_ all those times you stayed the night or that time you told me forever or how you've basically spent the last fourteen years _with me_. So sorry for romanticizing your pure platonic ideal, Kumar, but I guess I didn't go to boarding school so I just _don't get it_."

Somewhere along the promenade, a rhythmic thumping of feet rises and fades. The sea breeze carries only the crying of gulls. 

A shaky breath. Mahela visibly pulls himself together. "I'm taking tomorrow off. You do whatever you want."

"I'll drive you home," Kumar says, automatic.

"No need." 

And he can't seem to find a better word for _stay_. He watches Mahela go, pulling farther and farther away, and he doesn't feel some invisible string tugging at the words in him because that's not how physics — life — reality works. 

Eventually, it gets cold. He walks back up the road, through the market, to his car. He shuts the door and grips the steering wheel until his fingers go numb. 

The phone rings.

"So you _haven't_ lost your phone," Yehali says drily when he picks up. "Did you get my message?"

"Yeah, sorry." He's not sure what he's apologizing for. "I mean. I was — out. Took the day off."

"Oh." Yehali sounds faintly amused. "With Mahela?"

"Yeah."

"Did I interrupt your date?"

Kumar rests his head against the steering wheel. It takes him two tries to summon the words, "Don't. Just don't do that, all right?"

"All right," comes the reply, easy as anything. The pause that follows is Yehali's way of giving him space to elaborate, as he usually would. But this time, she's the one to break the silence. "You okay?"

"What's going to happen to us?" he blurts before his mind has a chance to second-guess. 

A pause. "What do you mean?"

He takes a slow breath. "Are you seeing someone?"

"Does it matter?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because—" _then it's not my fault_ "—please. I need to know."

Yehali says nothing for long seconds. "Other people have nothing to do with us, Kumar."

He wants to laugh, almost. "So — what? It's not you, it's me?"

"It's both of us." She sighs, the sound translating into static over the line. "Look, I love you and some part of me always will, probably. That's why I married you, that's why I'm happy we have children together, and I don't regret that. Just because it didn't last forever doesn't mean it wasn't real, you know?"

"It still could be," though it sounds half-hearted even to his own ears when he says, "forever."

"Not like that," is the gentle response. "You're my friend, but I don't want to spend every moment of every day with you. Actually, I don't know if there's anyone I want to spend that much time with."

"We don't have to be together all the time. If you need a break, or want to travel—"

"Or spend nine out of ten days apart?"

"We could do that."

"We _are_ doing that." Her wry smile is audible. "We don't have to get a divorce if you don't want. I know how bad it would look, and I'm not planning on remarrying. So."

"So. That's it."

"Pretty much."

He gazes through the passenger window toward an empty street. "I miss you."

"I'll be back in a week," Yehali says, somewhere between a reminder and a promise. "It's not that different from before, is it? You have work and I have distractions, we both miss the kids and hope they'll remember to call. Only now neither of us has to expect the other at home when we don't want to be."

"I always want you home."

Yehali doesn't even humor him. "Not always."

"No," he admits. "But we were happy."

"Because we have our own lives. And we still have them. Like you said you spent the day with Mahela, right?"

"Yeah."

"And you're happy."

Kumar closes his eyes. "Yeah."

"Then I'm happy for you." A rustling, clacking sound of clothes on hangers filters down the line. "We can talk in person next week, all right? I'll come by, after I get back."

"I can pick you up from the airport."

"Okay," she says easily. "See you next week, then."

"Yeah." He breathes out. "See you next week."

She hangs up. Kumar holds the phone clenched in his hand, knuckles pressed to his lips, staring straight ahead and not seeing the street. He already knows this road runs due south. He knows because he's been here, walked here, lived so many years. And maybe it's true, what Yehali said, that forever has nothing to do with sentiment. But permanence isn't measured just by time.

He blinks twice to clear his eyes, and starts the car.

 

* * *

 

It goes like this:

Mahela takes the bus home and turns on all the lights in an empty house. He makes himself tea. In the cabinets are too many cups, too many spoons for one person, but this is his. He turns on the television for background noise and answers emails methodically. His phone stays silent, the way it was meant to be.

The clock strikes ten and outside it begins to rain. He draws the curtains shut.

Tomorrow he will work from home, cook for himself, sleep early and pray for clear skies. The day after, he will go back to the office, and Dushan and Kumar will be there. The day after that, Kumar will still be there, and life will go on. Day after day, exactly like this, until today becomes just another memory in the long history of them.

At 10:45 there comes a knock at the door. 

"Your doorbell's broken," Kumar says when Mahela answers. His hair is dripping wet and there's no awning to offer any shelter. They stand defenseless against the January night while rain continues to fall. Kumar asks, "May I come in?"

Mahela doesn't move. "Are you going to mislead me again?"

Kumar starts to say something but stops. The pause goes on and on.

"When other people look at us," Kumar says finally, "they see cricketers first, right? They see Sangakkara and Jayawardene. They see the record-breaking partnership and us winning the World Cup and everything else. The work we've done for sport and for country and everything. They see all those stories, and those stories are important to me as well. You're my captain and my teammate and a better friend than I deserve, but—"

He stops again. Mahela doesn't say a word.

"But when I look at us," Kumar continues, "it's not — intimacy, that defines us. Or not just that. It's permanence. The fact that it's been thirty-four years and you're still here even though I've been — the way I am, I guess. I wish I could change that, but I also don't regret anything, except for if I've hurt you because I truly, honestly never want to. You're my best friend, and when I say I have a commitment to you, I mean it. I mean it in every way.

"I know — I've been stupid. I have all these ideas — I don't know if it was school or culture or something else, but I have this idea about what a perfect friendship looks like and I thought we were it. I mean, we _are_. But I thought perfect meant a certain thing only, and I guess I thought I could be that, if I tried hard enough. You're right — I like getting my way. Even when I'm wrong.

"I'm sorry," he says next. "I am sorry. But you're too important to me, and I wanted to keep it that way, if you can understand that. Because you're my best friend and I couldn't lose that, so I just thought—"

"Kumar," Mahela interrupts. He finds himself smiling without quite wanting to. "I know."

"You — yes?"

"You're my best friend, too. I don't love you any less for that."

"Right." Kumar squints up at the rain-drenched heavens. "Right, but — that's what I'm trying to tell you. I've been thinking. Since we've been spending pretty much every waking moment together anyway, and you always let me, so I guess that's — I mean. I want to keep doing that. If that's all right with you?"

Silence.

"What are you saying," Mahela asks at last.

Kumar fidgets. "Well, I — uh. We don't have to call it anything officially. I don't know if Yehali wants to deal with all the fuss of a divorce, with all the lawyers and papers, but you know. We're definitely separated and that's the way it's going to be. We talked about it, earlier, because I have you like always and—"

"Kumar," Mahela interrupts for the second time in as many minutes.

"...Yes?"

"Shut up."

Light from the doorway spills warm and yellow into the night, bridging the threshold where they stand. Kumar looks at Mahela as if waiting for a signal. Finally,

"Is that a 'yes, okay, shut up' or a 'no, get out of my face, shut up' or—"

"It's raining and I've waited three decades too long to be getting pneumonia before you ask me if we can spend the rest of our lives together, so shut up, because the answer's yes." Mahela opens the door fully. "Now come inside."

Water drips from Kumar's shoes and clothes, puddling on the hardwood floors, but there's nothing hesitant, nothing unwilling in the way he takes Mahela's hand.

Thirty-four years, ten months, and fifteen days. It's not quite forever, not yet — but it's a start.


End file.
